


GAME OVER. Retry?

by imiriad



Category: Lost Dimension
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Psychic Abilities, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4503729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imiriad/pseuds/imiriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sho is erased. Everything begins again, from a single choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	GAME OVER. Retry?

When that glowing red laser hits him square in the chest, a searing heat flares for an instant, and then, nothing. The distinct loss of that pain, and all sensation afterward. His physical being begins to shatter, crumbling like a poorly made sand castle. Strangely enough, being erased doesn't hurt so much as disturb, yet he finds himself crying out in terror anyway.

Is this what they'd all gone through? Every person, traitor or not, had been a comrade for a moment. _I wish I'd gotten to know them more._ That lingering regret echoes in his disappearing form. The process had been so automatic, so quick, that Sho couldn't even catch the look on The End's face. Beside himself with glee, no doubt, because this is what he wanted more than anything. For Sho to suffer, to be chosen and betrayed, to be doomed—

 _No_ , a small voice inside of him says. _He only wanted to live, like you and everyone else_. The End's revenge is a band-aid compared to that, a poor reparation that does nothing to staunch his resentment, or his desire. But that grudge won't last for much longer. The final Judgement was complete, and his comrades would be able to climb the Pillar and defeat The End once and for all. If the rest were a necessary sacrifice, then so is Sho.

What waits for him once all feeling fades, however, is not death.

A strangely familiar man calls his name. “Sho,” he repeats, firmer, squeezing his shoulder with a warm hand. “You must choose.”

Choose. Memories come flooding into his head, flushing out the remnants of another life just as quickly. Sho looks down onto the list of children and their corresponding Fate Materia as a frown twists at his mouth. “I don't want to choose,” he blurts out.

“You have to, or everything will have been for nothing. Everyone will die. You don't want that, do you, Sho? You must choose correctly.” Everyone will die if he's wrong? But... how can sacrificing one half to save the other be considered right?

 _I don't want anyone to die_. Impossible, they tell him. Ridiculous. This is the only way their world could live on. Sho succumbs, and carefully selects six names from the list.

He is the only one to know about the arrangement—at least, that's the way it's planned. Yoko could have heard it with her telepathy, but she refuses to use it unless absolutely necessary. George could have seen it by accident, but he hadn't been testing regularly with the same scientists as Sho. One other child, however, is witness to anything and everything, and Sho's choice had not gone unnoticed.

Golden eyes watch him, clouded with uncertainty. "So, I'm going to go?”

Sho avoids his gaze and stares at the floor instead.

“You... never let me stay, Sho.” The words are spoken flatly, but Sho can hear the hint of resignation in his voice, and sees the tremor in his shoulders. Sho doesn't know how to say it, how to explain the images in his head, the vague knowledge of what he should do. If everything works out properly, then...

Sho grips his pale fingers in his own, and says, boldly, “I want to save everyone.”

A naive hope, perhaps. Selfish whimsy from a child willing to risk everything as long as the best possible conclusion is in arm's reach. More than anything, it's the result Sho wants above all others, and he thinks that he can do it. The adults had said it before: his ability isn't just to observe the potential futures. It's to select between them.

Slowly, there comes a nod, and an equally tiny smile. “I understand.”

But Sho knows the truth—he's seen it. Even if he understands now, if he accepts it, one day it will become too much to bear, and that pain will twist him into something else altogether. Yet, that distortion would become their saving grace. “The End” would remember, when the others didn't. “The End” would gather them, when those twelve children would otherwise never meet again. And—

_Them together again, older, this time as one. Power and warmth filling his veins. A burst of golden light._

That world could be saved. _He_ would be able to live.

“I want to save you, too,” Sho tells him. “I will.” If he could do it... if _they_ could do it, then surely, a miracle would happen.


End file.
